Today is the birthday of J.C. Jacobsen, or Jacob Christian Jacobsen (September 2, 1811-April 30, 1887). He “was a Danish industrialist and philanthropist best known for founding the brewery Carlsberg,” which he named for his son Carl Jacobsen.

He had no formal academic or scientific training (although he had attended some lectures by Hans Christian Ørsted). In the 1840s he had come to realise that production of beer, which had until then been done in numerous small breweries, now had to be based on scientific methods and to be industrialised.

Jacobsen was only 24 when he founded the brewery.

Starting in 1847, he established his brewery Carlsberg (named after his son, Carl Jacobsen), in Valby on the outskirts of Copenhagen, on a site where it has remained since. Being extremely scrupulous as for the securing of high quality beer, in 1875 he founded the Carlsberg Laboratory.

He took much interest in public affairs and supported the National Liberal Party – being gradually more of a conservative – both as a Member of Parliament for some periods between 1854 and 1871 and as a strong supporter of the case of defence. Besides he was a well-known patron of art. After the fire of Frederiksborg Palace in 1859 he paid its rebuilding.

1876 he also founded “Carlsberg-fondet” – the Carlsberg Foundation that became his heir because of family problems of the next years. A bitter conflict with his son Carl led to the latter’s foundation of the Ny Carlsberg (New Carlsberg) Brewery 1882. A reconciliation was however obtained 1886. This conflict was the theme of a debated Danish TV drama series aired in 1997.

Here’s the biography that Carlsberg Group has on their website, entitled “Creating Carlsberg: The Greatest Gift of J.C. Jacobsen.”

It wouldn’t be hyperbolic to dub Jacob Christian Jacobsen, better known to most as J.C., “a legend.” The man did, after all, found one of the world’s most renowned breweries. And well over a century after his death, he remains one of Denmark’s most epochal characters.

It was a Wednesday – November 10th, 1847 – when J.C. Jacobsen’s newly created brewery Carlsberg completed its first brew. Shortly after, his traditional Bavarian lager was introduced to the Danish masses. The name Carlsberg was chosen to combine the name of his sole-surviving son “Carl” and the German word “berg,” meaning hilltop after the hilltop it was built upon.

Established in record time, the brewery used groundbreaking science to bring new brewing methods into the age of industrialization. Twenty-one years later, Carlsberg began exporting beer to Great Britain.

A young boy’s passion for brewing and science

Strange as it may sound today, it was clear from a very young age that J.C. would dedicate his life to brewing. He was, after all, the son of a brewer. It was in his blood.

As a child, J.C. could often be found experimenting in the basement of his father’s brewery on Brolæggerstræde in central Copenhagen. He was completely dedicated to the craft of beer and the intricacies of the natural sciences, both of which he went on to study as an adult at the new Technical University in Copenhagen. He sat in on lectures taught by H.C. Ørsted—a chemist who was particularly interested in the fermentation and brewing industries—and it was these lectures that inspired J.C.’s lifelong journey to “develop the art of making beer to the greatest possible degree of perfection.”

The year was 1836 when, in a wine merchant’s cellar, J.C. tasted his first imported Bavarian lager beer. Impressed and intrigued, J.C. ventured to Hamburg to study the production method first-hand. Upon returning to Copenhagen, he spent the next several years producing and selling small batches of Bavarian beer.

In 1838, J.C. married Laura Holst, a merchant’s daughter, and on March 2nd, 1842 their son Carl was born. But becoming a family man didn’t slow down J.C.’s pursuit towards crafting the perfect beer.

In 1845 he traveled to the Zum Späten brewery in Munich, where he was introduced to bottom-fermenting yeast. Although he didn’t know it at the time, this was to become the backbone of the beer produced at Carlsberg.

Beyond Beer: Establishing The Carlsberg Foundation

But more than a brewer and entrepreneur, J.C. was a patron of the arts, sciences, and, most notably, his home country of Denmark.

In 1875, he founded the Carlsberg Laboratory to explore and improve the beer-making process. It was here where the method for cultivating pure yeast was discovered—a discovery that J.C. shared with brewers all across the globe to improve the quality of beer everywhere – not just in his own brewery. A year later, using funds from the brewery, he created The Carlsberg Foundation to provide support to the Carlsberg Laboratory and also to Danish research ranging from the natural sciences and mathematics to the humanities and philosophy. The Carlsberg Foundation still exists today as a major contributor to modern science and art. It is run by a team of scientists who are the deciding shareholders of Carlsberg A/S and are also responsible for appointing a handful of the company’s board of directors—including the chairman.

Due to the turbulent nature of the relationship between J.C. and his son Carl, J.C. left his brewery to the Foundation—not Carl—when he passed away. In 1902, about a decade before Carl’s death, the Foundation also claimed ownership of the New Carlsberg Brewery.

Historically, The Carlsberg Foundation has been a part of many momentous projects in Denmark. In 1878, it sponsored the restoration of Frederiksborg Castle during its transformation into the Museum of National History. And in the spirit of J.C. himself, the Foundation continues to provide generous support to Danish pioneers. For example, it funded the building of The Danish Institute in Athens, a research center for archeologists, Greek historians, and philologists. There’s also the Danish Institute in Rome, established by The Carlsberg Foundation in 1967 to facilitate a cultural exchange between Denmark and Italy. In addition, The Foundation awards yearly monetary grants to Danish scientific researchers.

Outside of Carlsberg, J.C. held interests in politics and the arts. He served as a member of the Danish Parliament (“Folktinget”) for two terms. He designed and funded the Palm House at the University of Copenhagen’s Botanical Garden. He also designed his own Villa, which became a meeting grounds for the era’s intellectual elite like author Hans Christian Andersen and chemist Louis Pasteur.

J.C. died in 1887, on a visit to Rome.

His ingenuity and generosity continue to inspire generations of Carlsberg employees, who want to achieve, as their predecessor once said, “the greatest possible degree of perfection.”

J.C. Jacobsen with his entire staff.Photographed in 1885 at the Carlsberg brewery.

J.C. Jacobsen’s Childhood

Before J.C. created Carlsberg, he was simply the son of Caroline Frederikke Schelbeck and Christen Jacobsen. Caroline was the daughter of a Copenhagen silk weaver, while Christen grew up a farmer’s son in Northern Jutland. In 1801, Christen packed his bags and made way for Copenhagen to start a better life for himself, quickly finding work as a brewery hand in the King’s Brew-House (Kongens Bryghus) and shortly thereafter becoming the director. By 1826 he’d set up his own brewery on Brolæggerstræde in central Copenhagen, in the same building where his son J.C. spent his childhood.

J.C., the first and only child of Caroline and Christen, was born on September 2nd, 1811. Drawn to his father’s work at an early age, J.C. took on many responsibilities as his father’s health began to fail. In 1835, when Christen died, J.C. continued his father’s legacy and ran the family brewery. When his mother died a decade later, J.C. inherited both the brewery and also a great sum of money, which was later invested into the founding of Carlsberg Brewery.

And here’s a promotional video history of Carlsberg, created by the Carlsberg Group:

Last week I was in Copenhagen, meeting with J.C. Jacobsen, or at least standing in front of his portrait while Martyn Cornell snapped our photo.

Today is the birthday of Johan Gustav Christoffer Thorsager Kjeldahl (August 16, 1849-July 18, 1900) He was a Danish chemist who developed a method for determining the amount of nitrogen in certain organic compounds using a laboratory technique which was named the Kjeldahl method after him.

Kjeldahl worked in Copenhagen at the Carlsberg Laboratory, associated with Carlsberg Brewery, where he was head of the Chemistry department from 1876 to 1900.

He was given the job to determine the amount of protein in the grain used in the malt industry. Less protein meant more beer. Kjeldahl found the answer was in developing a technique to determine nitrogen with accuracy but existing methods in analytical chemistry related to proteins and biochemistry at the time were far from accurate.

The method consists of heating a substance with sulphuric acid, which decomposes the organic substance by oxidation to liberate the reduced nitrogen as ammonium sulphate. In this step potassium sulphate is added to increase the boiling point of the medium (from 337 °C to 373 °C) . Chemical decomposition of the sample is complete when the initially very dark-coloured medium has become clear and colourless.

The solution is then distilled with a small quantity of sodium hydroxide, which converts the ammonium salt to ammonia. The amount of ammonia present, and thus the amount of nitrogen present in the sample, is determined by back titration. The end of the condenser is dipped into a solution of boric acid. The ammonia reacts with the acid and the remainder of the acid is then titrated with a sodium carbonate solution by way of a methyl orange pH indicator.

In practice, this analysis is largely automated; specific catalysts accelerate the decomposition. Originally, the catalyst of choice was mercuric oxide. However, while it was very effective, health concerns resulted in it being replaced by cupric sulfate. Cupric sulfate was not as efficient as mercuric oxide, and yielded lower protein results. It was soon supplemented with titanium dioxide, which is currently the approved catalyst in all of the methods of analysis for protein in the Official Methods and Recommended Practices of AOAC International.

And Velp Scientifica also has an explanation of his method, which is still in use today.

Wednesday’s ad is for Carlsberg, from the 1920s or 30s, I think. It was done by Alfred Schmidt, a well-know Danish illustrator, caricaturist and painter. He did four paneled ads, each one with the tagline “Min Deglige Drik,” which means “My Daily Drink.” In this ad, number four of four, our intrepid man finally gets to taste his bottle of Carlsberg Pilsner. I don’t need to translate his response. “A-A-AH!” is fairly universal.

Tuesday’s ad is for Carlsberg, from the 1920s or 30s, I think. It was done by Alfred Schmidt, a well-know Danish illustrator, caricaturist and painter. He did four paneled ads, each one with the tagline “Min Deglige Drik,” which means “My Daily Drink.” In this ad, number three of four, after having poured his bottle of Carlsberg Pilsner into a glass and holding it up to the sunlight, our intrepid man says “Sikken en Farve Saa Sumk,” or essentially “what a beautiful color.”

Monday’s ad is for Carlsberg, from the 1920s or 30s, I think. It was done by Alfred Schmidt, a well-know Danish illustrator, caricaturist and painter. He did four paneled ads, each one with the tagline “Min Deglige Drik,” which means “My Daily Drink.” In this ad, number two of four, our intrepid man is pouring his Carlsberg Pilsner into a glass, and exclaims. “What a scent!” I do love his pouring method, holding the bottle upside down.

Sunday’s ad is for Carlsberg, from the 1920s or 30s, I think. It was done by Alfred Schmidt, a well-know Danish illustrator, caricaturist and painter. He did four paneled ads, each one with the tagline “Min Deglige Drik,” which means “My Daily Drink.” In this ad, number one of four, a man is ordering a Carlsberg Pilsner, or HOF.

Saturday’s ad is for Carlsberg, from the 1910. In this ad, a couple appears to be in their train compartment on their honeymoon. The man’s bag is open on the bed, revealing bottles of Carlsberg Pilsner. They stare lovingly into each other’s eyes, though their minds are most likely on the full glasses of beer they’re clinking together. Now that’s the way to begin a successful marriage.

Friday’s ad is for Carlsberg, from the 1980s. In this ad, a pair of blokes are playing snooker, or billiards, although the six bottles of Carlsberg HOF on the table may make the game a little difficult. The sign in the wall reads “A Good Bulletin,” though I’m pretty sure they’re not talking about me. The text at the bottom says “HOF has the clean fresh pilsner taste.”

Thursday’s ad is for Carlsberg, from 1930. In this ad, a trio are riding their bicycles toward the same set of buildings as yesterday’s ad, but they’re having to work a lot harder to get there. The cyclist in the lead is pointing up ahead, presumably to their destination. Or perhaps it’s to the car already there and he’s lamenting their choice of transportation. I wonder if that’s the same car from yesterday’s ad and they’ve been there drinking for hours?

Wednesday’s ad is for Carlsberg, from 1930. In this ad, a couple on a motorbike are on the brink of overtaking an automobile, a pair of cyclists, all turning left at the next intersection on their way, apparently, to either the building with Carlsberg Lager on the side, or the one with Carlsberg Pilsner on it. Presumably there’s beer in those buildings.